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Home»Documents » Engels and Marx - Historical Method - The great basic thought that the world is not to be comprehended as a complex of readymade things, but as a complex of processes, in which the things apparently stable no less than their mind images in our heads, the concepts, go through an uninterrupted change of coming into being and passing away, in which, in spite of all seeming accidentally and of all temporary retrogression, a progressive development asserts itself in the end — this great fundamental thought has, especially since the time of Hegel, so thoroughly permeated ordinary consciousness that in this generality it is now scarcely ever contradicted. But to acknowledge this fundamental thought in words and to apply it in reality in detail to each domain of investigation are two different things.

Engels and Marx - Historical Method - The great basic thought that the world is not to be comprehended as a complex of readymade things, but as a complex of processes, in which the things apparently stable no less than their mind images in our heads, the concepts, go through an uninterrupted change of coming into being and passing away, in which, in spite of all seeming accidentally and of all temporary retrogression, a progressive development asserts itself in the end — this great fundamental thought has, especially since the time of Hegel, so thoroughly permeated ordinary consciousness that in this generality it is now scarcely ever contradicted. But to acknowledge this fundamental thought in words and to apply it in reality in detail to each domain of investigation are two different things.

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In this way, however, the revolutionary side of Hegelian philosophy was
again taken up and at the same time freed from the idealist trimmings which
with Hegel had prevented its consistent execution. The great basic thought that
the world is not to be comprehended as a complex of readymade things, but as a
complex of processes, in which the things apparently stable no less than their
mind images in our heads, the concepts, go through an uninterrupted change of
coming into being and passing away, in which, in spite of all seeming
accidentally and of all temporary retrogression, a progressive development
asserts itself in the end — this great fundamental thought has, especially
since the time of Hegel, so thoroughly permeated ordinary consciousness that in
this generality it is now scarcely ever contradicted. But to acknowledge this
fundamental thought in words and to apply it in reality in detail to each
domain of investigation are two different things. If, however, investigation
always proceeds from this standpoint, the demand for final solutions and
eternal truths ceases once for all; one is always conscious of the necessary
limitation of all acquired knowledge, of the fact that it is conditioned by the
circumstances in which it was acquired. On the other hand, one no longer
permits oneself to be imposed upon by the antithesis, insuperable for the still
common old metaphysics, between true and false, good and bad, identical and
different, necessary and accidental. One knows that these antitheses have only
a relative validity; that that which is recognized now as true has also its
latent false side which will later manifest itself, just as that which is now
regarded as false has also its true side by virtue of which it could previously
be regarded as true. One knows that what is maintained to be necessary is
composed of sheer accidents and that the so-called accidental is the form
behind which necessity hides itself — and so on.

The old method of investigation and thought which Hegel calls
“metaphysical”, which preferred to investigate things as given, as fixed and
stable, a method the relics of which still strongly haunt people’s minds, had a
great deal of historical justification in its day. It was necessary first to examine
things before it was possible to examine processes. One had first to know what
a particular thing was before one could observe the changes it was undergoing.
And such was the case with natural science. The old metaphysics, which accepted
things as finished objects, arose from a natural science which investigated
dead and living things as finished objects. But when this investigation had
progressed so far that it became possible to take the decisive step forward,
that is, to pass on the systematic investigation of the changes which these
things undergo in nature itself, then the last hour of the old metaphysic
struck in the realm of philosophy also. And in fact, while natural science up
to the end of the last century was predominantly a collecting science, a
science of finished things, in our century it is essentially a systematizing
science, a science of the processes, of the origin and development of these
things and of the interconnection which binds all these natural processes into
one great whole. Physiology, which investigates the processes occurring in
plant and animal organisms; embryology, which deals with the development of
individual organisms from germs to maturity; geology, which investigates the
gradual formation of the Earth’s surface — all these are the offspring of our
century.

(SNIP)

In one point, however, the history of the development of society proves to
be essentially different from that of nature. In nature — in so far as we
ignore man’s reaction upon nature — there are only blind, unconscious agencies
acting upon one another, out of whose interplay the general law comes into
operation. Nothing of all that happens — whether in the innumerable apparent
accidents observable upon the surface, or in the ultimate results which confirm
the regularity inherent in these accidents — happens as a consciously desired
aim. In the history of society, on the contrary, the actors are all endowed
with consciousness, are men acting with deliberation or passion, working
towards definite goals; nothing happens without a conscious purpose, without an
intended aim. But this distinction, important as it is for historical
investigation, particularly of single epochs and events, cannot alter the fact
that the course of history is governed by inner general laws. For here, also,
on the whole, in spite of the consciously desired aims of all individuals,
accident apparently reigns on the surface. That which is willed happens but
rarely; in the majority of instances the numerous desired ends cross and
conflict with one another, or these ends themselves are from the outset
incapable of realization, or the means of attaining them are insufficient. thus
the conflicts of innumerable individual wills and individual actions in the
domain of history produce a state of affairs entirely analogous to that
prevailing in the realm of unconscious nature. The ends of the actions are
intended, but the results which actually follow from these actions are not
intended; or when they do seem to correspond to the end intended, they ultimately
have consequences quite other than those intended. Historical events thus
appear on the whole to be likewise governed by chance. But where on the surface
accident holds sway, there actually it is always governed by inner, hidden
laws, and it is only a matter of discovering these laws.

Men make their own history, whatever its outcome may
be, in that each person follows his own consciously desired end, and it is
precisely the resultant of these many wills operating in different directions,
and of their manifold effects upon the outer world, that constitutes history.
Thus it is also a question of what the many individuals desire. The will is
determined by passion or deliberation. But the levers which immediately
determine passion or deliberation are of very different kinds. Partly they may
be external objects, partly ideal motives, ambition, “enthusiasm for truth and
justice”, personal hatred, or even purely individual whims of all kinds. But,
on the one hand, we have seen that the many individual wills active in history
for the most part produce results quite other than those intended — often quite
the opposite; that their motives, therefore, in relation to the total result
are likewise of only secondary importance. On the other hand, the further
question arises: What driving forces in turn stand behind these motives? What
are the historical forces which transform themselves into these motives in the
brains of the actors? The old materialism never put this question to itself.
Its conception of history, in so far as it has one at all, is therefore
essentially pragmatic; it divides men who act in history into noble and ignoble
and then finds that as a rule the noble are defrauded and the ignoble are
victorious. hence, it follows for the old materialism that nothing very
edifying is to be got from the study of history, and for us that in the realm
of history the old materialism becomes untrue to itself because it takes the
ideal driving forces which operate there as ultimate causes, instead of
investigating what is behind them, what are the driving forces of these driving
forces. This inconsistency does not lie in the fact that ideal driving forces
are recognized, but in the investigation not being carried further back behind
these into their motive causes. On the other hand, the philosophy of history,
particularly as represented by Hegel, recognizes that the ostensible and also
the really operating motives of men who act in history are by no means the
ultimate causes of historical events; that behind these motives are other
motive powers, which have to be discovered. But it does not seek these powers
in history itself, it imports them rather from outside, from philosophical
ideology, into history. Hegel, for example, instead of explaining the history
of ancient Greece out of its own inner interconnections, simply
maintains that it is nothing more than the working out of “forms of beautiful
individuality”, the realization of a “work of art” as such. He says much in
this connection about the old Greeks that is fine and profound, but that does
not prevent us today from refusing to be put off with such an explanation,
which is a mere manner of speech.